


Glance into the Past

by Orlissa



Category: A Discovery of Witches (TV), All Souls Trilogy - Deborah Harkness
Genre: Book Verse, F/M, Fluff, History, Timewalking, pillowtalk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-02
Updated: 2019-12-02
Packaged: 2021-03-03 13:14:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,102
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21639115
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Orlissa/pseuds/Orlissa
Summary: “I was just thinking.”“About?” She feels his lips pressing a fleeting kiss to the top of her head.“Something Sarah said the other day about my parents. About how my dad would sometimes take my mom with him to the past, for dates,” she says, drawing nonsensical patterns on his chest with her index finger. He lets out a content sigh. “And you.”During a quiet night in Madison, Matthew and Diana have a little discussion about the more romantic possible uses of timewalking.
Relationships: Diana Bishop/Matthew Clairmont
Comments: 5
Kudos: 80





	Glance into the Past

**Author's Note:**

> I’m doubly nervous now. On the one hand, it’s always a little nerve-wracking when you write for a new fandom for the first time. On the other hand, it’s been a year since I’ve written any kind of fiction. It’s been all academic stuff for me, and I’m a little worried that I’ve gotten a little rusty when it comes to flowery, funny prose instead of academic objectivity. So, yeah, I really hope I managed to write something worthwhile :) Admittedly, it’s just a little fluffy scene, set sometime around the beginning of chapter 37 in A Discovery of Witches (after Marcus and Miriam arrives in Madison, but before Juliette), in the vein of the other amazing “pillowtalk” fics I’ve read in this fandom. Hope you’ll like it :)
> 
> Tumblr: @orlissa

“Something’s on your mind.” It’s not a question, but a statement, Matthew’s soft voice breaking through the stillness reigning over the room as they lay in her parents’ old bed.

“Nothing bad,” she promises as she burrows deeper into his arms, her head resting over his heart. “I was just thinking.”

“About?” She feels his lips pressing a fleeting kiss to the top of her head.

“Something Sarah said the other day about my parents. About how my dad would sometimes take my mom with him to the past, for dates,” she says, drawing nonsensical patterns on his chest with her index finger. He lets out a content sigh. “And you.”

He grows still under her for a moment, like a marble statue. “Me?”

“How you have lived for so long, and…” Suddenly it’s hard to put into words what she means. She is almost afraid of breaking some unspoken rule, of touching a nerve. “And if there were—I know you said we shouldn’t meddle with time, but if there were something in the past you would have liked to show me, share with me?”

She feels him relax instantly. His chest vibrates as he lets out a soundless chuckle.

“A part of me wishes I’ve had you for the last fifteen hundred years, to share everything I’ve lived through with you,” he says softly, his hand slipping down her arm in a feather-light caress. “While the other part of me never wants you to glimpse the man I was before you. But,” reaching her hand he entwines their fingers together, “I’ll have to give it to your father, waltzing in Vienna is a novel idea.”

“Oh, is it?” she grins into the worn T-shirt he is wearing, delighted at his willingness to play this game.

“Yes. You know, it was thought to be rather scandalous when it first became fashionable. For a man and a woman to dance so close to each other, their arms around each other…” he pulls her even closer, just to make a point. “Some said unmarried women shouldn’t even dance it, because it might just corrupt them morally. But if it comes to dancing with you,” he raises her hand to his lips and presses a kiss to her knuckles. “I’d prefer the Volta. Foxtrot. Charleston, maybe.”

She turns in his arms and rests her chin on his breastbone so she can look into his eyes. “Never would have guessed that you were big on jazz,” she teases.

“Everyone was big on jazz during that era—you should have seen how Ysabeau and Phillippe danced! The world was just recovering from the Great War and, in a way, the jazz age was like a collective, relieved sigh. Or an act of denial.” He closes his eyes and lets out a slow exhale through his nose. “Paris was like a dreamland back then, full of artists, dreamers… you would have liked that. Or Chicago. I’ve only spent a short time in the States during the prohibition, but going to a speakeasy… It was the perfect mix of decadence and rebellion.”

“Did the De Clermonts have anything to do with Al Capone’s operations?” she enquires, touching his nose lightly. He doesn’t open his eyes or answer her question, but the corner of his mouth twitches. So the answer is probably yes.

“But there is more than dancing,” he goes on after a moment of silence.

“Like?”

He moves swiftly, turning them around so she’s on her back with him hovering above her, propped up on his elbows, nose mere inches from hers.

“Jousting. I would have loved to take you to a joust,” he says, sweeping an errant strand of hair form her eyes. “Not in Henry VIII’s court, especially not after his accident. Maybe in his father’s. He was more agreeable. Or in Henri II’s, in France. I would have worn your favors and won in your name.”

“How… chivalric. And over-confident” she chuckles, but doesn’t get to say anything else as he silences her with a quick kiss.

“Oh, believe me, I would have won.” Another kiss. “And then there’s theatre. Jenny Lind as Susanna in _The Marriage of Figaro_. She might not have been as divine of a singer she was promoted to be, but there was still something magical in her performance. Charlie Chaplin live at the London Coliseum, before the movies, before her was world famous. He was the greatest comic I’ve ever seen.”

“Did you know them?”

“Personally, no. But I’ve seen them perform, Chaplin several times. Once during his American tour, with Marcus. He’d try to imitate Chaplin for weeks afterwards, driving me complete mad,” he says with a groan, his head dropping to her neck. “I think he did it on purpose after a while.”

She chuckles and pushes against his shoulders; she’s only slightly surprised when he lets her, obediently lying back so she can settle on top of him once again. She presses a quick kiss to his biceps.

“There are a couple of people I would have liked you to meet, beyond the obvious ones, beyond those you’re already so curious about. Beyond Darwin and Harvey.”

“Like?”

“Blanche de Teleki.” Feeling the question coming, he continues after only a short beat of silence as he absent-mindedly caresses her back, his hand slipping under her pajama top at her waist. “She was a Hungarian countess. She studied painting in Paris in the 1820s as a young girl and was a guest in Ysabeau’s salon often. That’s where I met her.”

“Should I be jealous?” There’s no edge in that question, and he feels that too. He grins.

“Not at all.” He presses a kiss to the crown of her head and she almost croons in delight. “She went on to become a quite formidable woman. She opened the first school for girls in Hungary, petitioned for women to be able to attend university, for women’s suffrage. She took part in the revolution of 1848, and hid revolutionaries after it failed. She was caught and thrown into prison for years, but when I met her again in Paris in 1860, she had the same determination in her eyes as in her youth. You two would have gotten on like a house on fire,” he chuckles and she smiles, eyes slipping closed. “But…”

“But?”

“But,” he adjusts her slightly in his arms so he can place a feather-light kisses on her temple, eyelids, nose, and, finally, her lips, “that’s enough talk of the past right now. Let me take you out on a proper date in the present first.”

**Author's Note:**

> The books make a couple of mentions of Hungary, and I’m Hungarian, so I just couldn’t resists throwing some Hungary-ism into the mix :D Fun fact: I attended a high school named after Blanche de Teleki. By the way, her actual, Hungarian name was Blanka, but to avoid any confusion I went with the French version of her name, especially since it’s probable that Matthew would have known her by that name. She really did all the things above, and spent the last years of her life in exile, first in Austria, and then in France, where she died in 1862. She is buried in Paris.


End file.
